Pasta Arrabbiata With Broccolini And Mushrooms

The kick off for BBQ season (aka Memorial Day weekend) is less than two weeks away. This time of the year is known for smoked meats, hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken and sausages of every imaginable flavor. Always available are delights like baked beans, pasta salad, macaroni salad, and coleslaw. Since I’m about to be buried alive in delicious fattening food on sunny weekends with friends and family, I decided to take a stab at a dish that will warm you up on these last few cold Spring nights.

This pasta with roasted broccolini and mushrooms is covered in a spicy tomato based sauce.

Add the tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, brown sugar, chopped basil, crushed red pepper, pepper, and salt and stir all of the ingredients together. Reduce the heat to Low and cook the sauce for about 20 minutes or until the sauce has thickened.

Directions for Pasta Dish:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Prepare the broccolini by cutting the ends of the stems off. (Usually about an inch is enough to get the tough part off.)

Place the veggies on a baking pan and bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until the veggies are slightly browned.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the directions on the box.

Once the pasta is done cooking, drain the water.

Once the arrabbiata sauce is done, mix in the cooked pasta and the roasted veggies and stir all of the ingredients together. (See note below.)

* Note: The sauce will soak into the pasta overnight. If you don’t think you’ll eat all of the pasta then I recommend adding the sauce directly to your plate and store the leftover sauce in a separate jar in the refrigerator.

If you like spicy food then Arrabbiata sauce is the perfect Italian sauce for you. The beauty about making this at home is that you can control the spice-factor. I found 2 teaspoons of red pepper flakes to be spot on for me. It’s enough to know it’s spicy, but it doesn’t leave your mouth on fire. I don’t know about you, but while I love spicy food, I also value feeling my tongue.

Sure I could have let the pasta stand on its own, but let’s add some fun veggies to make it more interesting. I roasted the broccolini and mushrooms to enhance their flavors. Ooh, broccolini… It sounds fancy, but it’s essentially broccoli with smaller florets and skinnier stems.

I’m really loving this sauce! It’s loaded with so much flavor and it turns a simple pasta dish into a chic stop in flavor town. I don’t think that even makes sense, but it sounded good in my head.

Arrabbiata means angry in Italian, which is a fun foreign language way of saying spicy. It’s delicious, inexpensive, easy, and I’d even call it healthy. Seriously, what’s not to love? 😉

This sauce would be awesome on a pizza too! Mmm, from one carb dream to another. There is actually a local pizza place that will do that now that I’m thinking about it. My husband actually has ordered it with sauce like this and swears it makes more interesting pizza.

Love this pasta/pizza sauce. With the fresh crushed red peppers and brown sugar I can just imagine how delightful it is. My boys love spicy things so this would be a big hit in our house. My boys have just started a low carb kick so hoping that I can give your sauce recipe a try over some roasted sausage stuffed peppers.